Midsummer Passion & Other Stories

by Erskine Caldwell

177 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1991

About the author

Erskine Preston Caldwell was an American author. His writings about poverty, racism and social problems in his native South won him critical acclaim, but they also made him controversial among fellow Southerners of the time who felt he was holding the region up to ridicule.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erskine_...

Reviews

[Benjamin Thomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a collection of 15 fairly short stories first written and published in the 1930’s. Erskine Caldwell won critical acclaim for novels such as Tobacco Road and God's Little Acre but such accolades would be difficult to fathom given the stories in this collection. All 15 stories have the common thread of taking place in the rural South with the main characters usually being hard working farmers or laborers. Despite the cover art of this book, the word “passion” doesn’t always refer to romantic liaisons or “lusty women being chased by willful lads” as the back cover states. Often the stories are about a character’s passion for the task at hand, whether it be a business proposition, or gaining freedom from one’s conniving boss.

Several of the stories were pretty good but others were merely OK. A couple of them seemed to just die when it seemed the author could have really provided a cool twist or a clever ending. For Erskine Caldwell fans, I would suggest skipping this one and stay with his novels.

[Russell Bittner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although I have the distinct impression I’ve read and reviewed many of these stories already (most likely in The Collected Short Stories of Erskine Caldwell ), I don’t for a moment resent re-reading them. Caldwell is always a pleasure … even a second or third time around.

As one small example of what I mean by the pleasure of Caldwell’s prose, I’ll cite the opening paragraph of his story “The Lonely Day” on p. 149: “(f)or a week the wet midsummer mists had been creeping over Maine from the south, from the coast; sheets of low-hanging gray vapor spread over the country like dirty steam and leveled the foothills into smooth fields, while the mountains had been wrapped in wet gray clouds and put away from sight towards the north, towards Canada. Yesterday the mists had lifted over the housetop, almost over the tops of the elm trees; but to-day, Sunday, the lower air was so wet that the meshes of the window-screens were filled with panes of opaque water.”

I don’t mean, with my award of five stars, to suggest that every short story in this collection is brilliant. Every story is not. Some are quite mediocre. But in all cases, they tell the story of very mediocre people, and Caldwell remains first and foremost true to his characters. As I’ve said many times before, you can’t go wrong with Erskine Caldwell. He’s a documentarian of the best sort.

RRB
06/27/19
Brooklyn, NY

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another compilation series of Caldwell’s works and short stories covering love, sex, alcohol, the usual areas you would expect from Caldwell. As time goes on with reading Caldwell Books, it seems like the publishers to generate more money published new “compilation stories” that have appeared in other formats and other books. So, like we have hear, many of the stories you will already be familiar with, having read them before.